A wild animal kills a human. The general mode operandi is to find the animal and destroy it. Is that the correct thing to do? I realise that different species might have different solutions so perhaps we can give our opinions based on specie.

I suppose we need to know why the wild animal has killed a person.
In the Mara about 15 years ago when my dad was living there; there was a small group of tourists - 2 couples that decided to go for a walk by themselves out of the camp. I believe it was the Mara Buffalo camp; after a good half hour walk without informing anyone they found themselves in the middle of a large group of Buffalo. Both men decided to get closer and shoot some photos; they both got killed.
They had been warned and told like all arrivals in camps (as I am sure you inform your clients) not to go walk about in the bush without trained people.

Again - perhaps 10 years or so; in the Tsavo - father with wife and 2 totos; come across a pride of Lions. The dad decides to take his camera, jump out of the car and walk around the lions so that he can get a photo of the pride with his family sitting in the car smiling a waving in the back ground. The gentleman forgot that he was not in London Zoo and never made it back to the camp for a sun downer!
He also took the keys from the car and had it in his pocket. Wife and kids stayed in the car on their own whilst daddy got killed and they could not move intil they were found.
With all warnings from parks - when incidents like this happens; do you think that the animals in this case should be killed?

nico,
before any statement you get the answer first: OF COURSE NOT!!!!!!
you see these things happen all over africa and news covering these incidents make people think that africa is one of the most dangerous place on earth! lions are just waiting for mzungus to kill and eat them!
if tourists act stupidly and against all warnings even post mortem they should be sued for jeopardizing an animals life due to death sentence for killing an insane tourist!
i am also against game walks because some strange things might happen and an elephant or buffalo might feel threatened by a group of walking guests and might charge. the guide has to make use of his wappon in order to secure (or try to!) guest's well being. as a result the animal has to pay the price for tourists walking around their habitat!

Unfortunately tourists a lot of the times really do not use their head in any part of the world. Same here with clients I have in Tuscany! Perhaps on holiday common sence does not work any more.

Game walks in the correct area with the correct supervision should be okay as most trained game wardens will know what to do and also I believe they will not shoot to kill but shoot in the air to scare away any possible problems. The trick is not to be in problems but to walk in areas where you will not come across buffalo or elephants etc.
Bwanamich - "different species might have different solutions" - perhaps the best solution is not be find or place oneself in a situation where you will be placed in a corner against wildlife?
KWS - take people on game walks; how would they react to a so called wild encounter?

You've probably all heard the saying before that goes something like this: If a tiger tastes human flesh/blood then it will become addicted and purposely seek human as prey before anything else.

So if this statement is true, and a tiger kills a human, should the authorities not seek to destroy it at all costs before it kills again and again?? Your thoughts....

And for the hardliners let us assume that the human population did not encroach on the tigers' territory and that they do follow all the golden rules about not venturing in the forest alone, at night, etc, etc.

Yes - I have heard the statement and recal the historic events during the 1st part of the last century with lions eating workers during the building of the East African Railway. A bunch of lions got to taste human flesh and wanted nothing else as they took a liking to it.

However in our modern days - most of the times it is the tourists who do not use there "akili" and when they get killed by some sort of wildlife - the authorities get called in to shoot the animal.

If you take out clients during your season and one of them decides to go walk about without you or your trackers and something happens. Who do you blame, the animal or the person who has gone for his or her last wonder?
I suppose a lion will taste the human blood and there will be a problem but if it is an elephant or a buffalo - what happens? Do they also look for which animal killed the person and how on earth will they find out which one did it?

Tough one - this topic.